Aging and living in urban US

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Dear Mom

SOB (sister of blogger) and I had to have a little time today. She went to Dad’s and your apartment aloneand looked through pictures. What was she thinking?

The house is still filled with happy memories, even with your and Dad’s deaths there. For each of you, the months before your deaths were the most honest, hilarious, screwball-comedic and emotionally devastating episodes of our lives.

If you read my blog, you know that we made sure Dad had everything, including his cocktail hour — his sacred time with all of us. Even if we had to use an eye-dropper to share wine with him. And I know you would have laughed at all of this, because you loved that your kids were crazy when it came to you and Dad. And you loved that, when we took over, it was gently and lovingly. You raised us right — with love and humor.

You died before your peers. They were there to mourn you and comfort us. Luckily, there were many to mourn Dad. He staked out a place in people’s hearts after you were gone. Hard to believe but true.

He never forgot you. We tried to get him interested in others. But he was married to you and that was the beginning and end of the story. So, we took special care of him because he, like us, live every day with you in our hearts.

SOB and I are having a hard time on the weekends, because they centered on visits with Dad. I think I drink a little too much wine on Friday nights so I can’t get up on Saturdays for the usual routine.

But, the hole needs to stay for a while because, to fill it, would erase Dad. And we cannot figure out how to fill our weekend and keep Dad’s spirit with us. Yet. Maybe soon. But it is a process.

I don’t think we ever thought that both of you would be gone and we would relinquish our home with all of the memories that soaked right into the walls, shoring up the very building’s foundations.

The other painful part is memory. We can’t figure some of the faces in the pictures. That is too scary for us, because maybe in two generations, no one will pick out you or Dad in the pictures. And that is more painful that you know.

Life is a journey. And death is a legacy and that legacy is a gift to the generations that follow. If only we make sure they remember.